Connie
Hawkins

First ABA MVP in 67-68. First ABA Scoring Leader in 67-68 with 26.8 ppg
average. 2-Time Member of ABA All-Pro Team. Second in scoring in 68-69
at 30.2 ppg. Member of 67-68 First ABA Championship Team with the Pittsburgh
Pipers. Member of the Basketball Hall of Fame.

From Jim
O'Brien's 1972-73 Complete Handbook of Pro Basketball:
His move to the basket is unstoppable, his hands
are so big and he has such control of the ball
. . . Connie isn't consistent,
but when he's hot, he's hot, he's hot . . . "He handles the
ball like a guard," says
Billy Cunningham of the 76ers, once a schoolboy
opponent in Brooklyn . . . "He has the biggest
hands I've ever seen," said Dave DeBusschere. "He handles
a basketball as though it was a baseball. He doesn't run, he floats.
Inside, he's one of the best scorers in the game." . . . His
humor borders on the ironic.
In a questionnaire he answered the following: What were the
honors you won in college? with "I won the honor
to leave." . . . Hawkins was a man caught in a dilemma
not of his own making when the last college scandal
broke during his freshman year at Iowa . . .
It ended his college career and sent him to the
ABL, the Harlem Globetrotters, and the ABA before
he brought suit successfully against the NBA and
played for the Phoenix Suns. . . Subject of engrossing
book by David Wolf called "Foul!" (Holt, Rinehart
and Winston, Inc.). Read
it. May
be best book on basketball ever written, and there's
too much to Hawkins' history to capsulize here .
. . When Bill Russell picked all-time all-pro team,
The Hawk was on his second-five selection. "If
he hadn't got such a bad deal," Russell remarked,
"you would mention Hawkins with Baylor and Pettit."

GP

Min

FGM

FGA

FG%

3PM

3PA

3P%

FTM

FTA

FT%

TReb

AST

PF

Stl

Blk

Pnts

RPG

APG

PPG

Career ABA Totals

117

4998

1131

2194

.515

5

31

.161

1028

1343

.765

1479

504

414

-

-

3295

12.6

4.3

28.2

ABA Playoff Totals

21

936

210

416

.505

4

8

.500

169

239

.707

258

91

83

-

-

593

12.3

4.3

28.2

ABA All-Star Totals

1

26

3

6

.500

0

0

.000

1

3

.333

9

2

3

-

-

7

9.0

2.0

7.0

During
the 1968-69 season, the Minnesota Pipers used Connie Hawkins
as a "human billboard." The back of Hawkins' warmup jacket
looked like a giant resume--it was plastered with Hawkins'
1967-68 post-season awards and a giant red, white and blue
ABA basketball. Needless to say, Hawkins' teammates gave
him a hard time about the jacket. Hawkins finally became
so exasperated that he purposely "lost" the jacket during
a road trip to Dallas. (photos
courtesy of Dick Engelberg)